Thursday, February 14, 2008

I've been re-reading P.J. O'Rourke's 2001 book, The CEO of the Sofa. It is classic O'Rourk: smart and laugh-out-loud funny. Some excerpts:

"Anthropology is just travel writing about places that don't have room service. Sociology is journalism without news, and Psychology is peeking into your sister's diary after your parents have sent her to rehab."

"Fascism sought to bring people together, to heal the fragmentation of society, to remedy the alienation that the individual feels in the ruthlessly competitive atmosphere of the free market. But, at the same time, fascism wanted to preserve and improve all the material benefits of industrialism and trade. So far it sounds -- as I've pointed out before -- like a New Democrats campaign platform. But instead of recounting votes in Palm Beach County, Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, and Tojo believed they could accomplish their aims with mindless patriotism, genocide, and secret police. It didn't work."

"Species extinction is sad, in a way, but it's nonetheless pleasant to go get the paper in the morning without being bothered by pterodactyls. And a mastodon would wreck the lawn."

"The world has been collapsing for more than two thousand years. Either the world was once a very wonderful place with a long way to fall (of which there is no historical evidence) or people my age are full of crap."

"The Founding Fathers, in their wisdom, devised a method by which our republic can take one hundred of its most prominent numskulls and keep them out of the private sector, where they might do actual harm."

"Women are successful in the business world because the business world was created by men. Men are babies. And women are ... good with kids."